LOWELL -- Betty Bayard says she understands why people her age may not be so active. But at 93, she's committed to maintaining and preparing herself for whatever may come her way. She stretches and walks, moves and balances, just in case she may ever have trouble at home or while she's out.

"If you're not out doing something you're just sitting at home," she explained. "That's not good."

Bayard says all of her activity is possible because some very kind students at UMass Lowell show her how to stay fit.

The school's undergraduate exercise-physiology program is one of the fastest-growing programs at the university, and some students work with senior citizens and the elderly from the Greater Lowell region to help get them in shape.

Professor Connie Seymour, who has taught physical therapy at the school for 22 years, says the school programs are growing because maintenance fitness is increasing in popularity. She said though the concept has been around since World War I, people have recently started to get more into the idea, which can help people prepare their bodies as they age.

"It has to be a certain kind of person that has to go into PT," Seymour added. "Someone that has empathy.

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Someone that truly is interested in improving someone's quality of life and their ability to participate in society. They have to also understand."

At UMass Lowell, the school has about 600 students in the exercise-physiology program through the College of Health Sciences. Seymour says the program has tripled in size in the last six years.

Every week, some of the exercise-physiology students aspiring to become physical therapists meet at Forever Health and Fitness Center in Chelmsford with seniors from the local Learning in Retirement Association.

For $5 a week, LIRA members work with students on balance and muscle-training exercises at the health club.

JoAnn Moriarty-Baron, a lecturer at UMass and president of the Physical Therapy advisory program, said these are preventative measures that ensure residents move around safely on their own and won't fall at home.

Rose Crisci, 23, of Lunenburg, is in the first-year physical therapy program in the three-year-long doctoral program at UMass Lowell.

UMass is the only state school to offer such a program. Crisci leads the exercise physiology undergrads and citizens every week in lessons in Chelmsford; she said she got involved because she grew up watching her brother, Sam, cope with cerebral palsy. He took physical-therapy sessions which opened her eyes to the field, she said.

"They want to learn about preventative health care," Crisci said of her LIRA classes. "They all have a lot of motivation for that. It keeps me coming back. They have a lot of questions. It keeps me on my toes."

Some students through a grant program at UMass are now working to offer special therapy to patients with neurological conditions, too. The four patients in that program currently suffer largely from multiple sclerosis, according to Seymour, along with other conditions. Students get hands-on experience assisting those patients through physical therapy offered to them for free.

Larry White, 27, of Gloucester, is a physical-therapy doctoral student in his second year who worked with neurological patients last summer. He said he originally got into the exercise-physiology program at UMass because of his interest in fitness but he says it's gone way beyond that for him.

"The idea that you can bring someone up to an area that most people feel and may take for granted is just something that I can go home happy over, having a big sense of satisfaction," he said, "and knowing that I made an impact in someone's life."

At the fitness center in Chelmsford in late March, a group of about 20 residents followed along with UMass students who showed them how to stretch and balance.

The group ended their class with a cool-down and some yoga stretches.

Russell MacLeod, 79, of Chelmsford, said he is grateful to the students for their assistance.

"It's wonderful," he said. "This is a good group. ... It gets me off the couch."

Bayard added she wishes more people her age would get out and get active.

"I think there's a lot of people that should," she said.

For more information, visit the Exercise Physiology and Physical Therapy programs page through the UMass Lowell website at www.uml.edu/ Health-Sciences/PT/Programs/Exercise-Physiology/.

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